How does Hughes use different voices to present his ideas about African American experience in his poetry?

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Introduction

How does Hughes use different voices to present his ideas about African American experience in his poetry? The set of poems "Dream Deferred" are about what happens to dreams when they are put on hold, Hughes probably intended for the poem to focus on the dreams of African-Americans in particular because he originally entitled the poem "Harlem," which is the capital of African American life in the United States; it was also the centre of the Harlem Renaissance that was in full swing when Hughes was writing his poetry. In these poems Hughes uses different voices from different people to explain and portray different feelings and emotions; I think he does this quite successfully in a lot of his poems. Ultimately, Hughes uses a carefully arranged series of images that also function as figures of speech to suggest that people should not delay their dreams because the more they postpone them, the more the dreams will change and the less likely they will come true. Langston Hughes was born in1902 and died in 1967, he was a black American poet he wrote in the time of the Harlem Renaissance which was a time of great passion and the black people fighting for freedom against the white oppressors. Hughes is famous for writing in many different styles one of his preferred styles is writing as though he is someone else having 'one voice for many'. ...read more.

Middle

black man who is being addressed, the man talking is clearly of a higher statute or of a different race, this clearly shows that social strata played a huge part in the African American experience at the time. Another example of uses voices to portray the African American experience at the time that Hughes was writing is in Theme for English B. It says in the poem "The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight...........I wonder if its that simple?" This clearly shows the different voices being shown; the white man says that it is easy to define who we are and where we belong in society. However the black boy questions the social norms and isn't sure what to put as he realises that it isn't as simple as he first thought. This shows white society knows where it belongs, that's in control of black people, and being there boss. However the black boy represents the black community standing up for what they believe and challenging the white power which is what was happening in the Harlem Renaissance. Another great poem in my opinion that Hughes uses to portray different voices showing different opinions and feelings is the poem 'Merry go round' This poem is spoken by a coloured child at a carnival, however if you look at it further you could see it as being the whole black community speaking again. ...read more.

Conclusion

the kitchen," this shows that not only is this one man offended by the fact that he is segregated, but he is representing the whole black society when he is saying this, putting it in the speech bubbles shows another voice which is the white oppressors however its is said in a way that shows that the black man has no concern in what the white person has to say. In conclusion, Langston Hughes uses many different voices to express and show African American experiences at the time he was writing, showing different maturity levels and different points of view on a certain topic within the black community. In my opinion he successfully did so by showing many different examples of racism and white oppression all through the voices of different people varying in gender, age and social status. In my opinion the different styles that Hughes used was very well done, the way that he wrote some in the style of a children's poem, another in a conversation and another in the style of a essay. I believe that because he was able to capture the key points of so many different people opinions on the topic at that time that it really helps the reader get a good opinion on what African American experience was like at the time. ?? ?? ?? ?? Robert Foard 12H 10/10/09 ...read more.

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